above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors.  The circumstances of the origin of this ‘poetomachia’ are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer.  The origin of the “war” has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in “The Scourge of Villainy,” a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson’s.  On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging “playwright” (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty.  Jonson’s own statement of the matter to Drummond runs:  “He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his ‘Poetaster’ on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."*

[footnote] The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of ‘Poetaster’ and ‘Satiromastrix’ by J. H. Penniman in ‘Belles Lettres Series’ shortly to appear.  See also his earlier work, ‘The War of the Theatres’, 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in ‘Notes and Queries’, and in his edition of Jonson, 1906.

Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known.  “Histriomastix,” a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus “represented on the stage”; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature.  As to the personages actually ridiculed in “Every Man Out of His Humour,” Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as “a public scurrilous, and profane jester,” and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston’s work being entitled “The Scourge of Villainy").  Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was “a bold impertinent fellow. . .a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room.  So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax.  From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone [’i.e.’, jester] in ‘Every Man in His Humour’ [’sic’].”  Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of “the grand scourge or second untruss” with “the scurrilous and profane” Chester?